Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan

Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan founded the United Arab Emirates in 1971 and was its president until his death, which makes him the only person most Emiratis have known as head of state. He grew up in Abu Dhabi when it was a pearling and fishing settlement of a few thousand people whose trade had been destroyed by the Japanese cultured pearl, and governed the inland region of Al Ain from 1946, where he is remembered for reorganising the falaj irrigation channels. Oil was found offshore in 1958 and his brother Shakhbut, the ruler, refused to spend the revenue, keeping banknotes in the palace; the family and the British replaced him with Zayed in 1966 in a bloodless transfer. When Britain announced in 1968 that it would leave the Gulf by 1971 he pushed for federation, and secured seven of the nine Trucial States - Bahrain and Qatar went their own way. He funded the poorer emirates from Abu Dhabi's oil and accepted a federal structure that left considerable power to the individual rulers, which is why the union held. He settled the border disputes with Saudi Arabia in 1974 on terms generous to Riyadh, and the greening programme he ordered planted tens of millions of trees in a country that is mostly desert. He kept relations with Iran and Iraq during the war between them, gave heavily to Palestinian and other Arab causes, and ran a majlis at which citizens could petition him directly. Political parties remained banned and the workforce that built the country was and is overwhelmingly migrant and without citizenship. He was succeeded by his son Khalifa, and the mosque bearing his name in Abu Dhabi holds his tomb. He never learned to read fluently and dictated his correspondence. The federation he made is the only one in the Arab world that has held together since independence.

• Lived: 1918 CE – 2004 CE
• Nationality: Emirati
• Roles: head_of_state